The Experience - Clinton Festa

Stories Found

About This Episode

​This ​week on Stories Found, ​we're ​talking ​to ​one ​of ​our ​favorite ​playwrights, ​Clinton ​Festa, ​and ​then ​hearing ​his ​surreal ​comedy, ​The ​Experience. The play follows a couple dining at a restaurant with a twist - instead of food, they serve emotions. Frustration, rejection, nostalgia - it's all on the menu. With snappy dialogue and excellent pacing, Clinton creates a surreal world where feelings truly become tangible menu items. It's a thoughtful and hilarious look at the experience of human emotion.

About the Playwright

Clinton Festa began his career as a writer and cartoonist for his campus humor magazine. Since then he’s had short plays produced around the U.S. and Canada, comedy sketches that have placed in national competitions, and a novel recently published with CamCat Books.

During the pandemic, he wrote and directed a seven-episode action-comedy podcast called The Malone Family in the Enchanted Forest (produced by the Cary Playwrights’ Forum). Clinton runs an online book drive for inmates in prisons and juvenile detention centers called Sentences Book Donations. He lives in Greensboro, NC with his wife and children.

• Listen to Clinton's hilarious zombie play in Episode 10: PICKY ZOMBIES.
• Order Clinton’s book, Ancient Canada: a Mythological Tale at CamCat
• Find Clinton on NPX, The New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/74998/clinton-festa

About the Cast

The Experience was performed for us by:

Gabriella Headley as Wife

Joe Llorens as Husband

Tonie Knight as Waitress

Manuel Solis-Bauza as Take Out Customer

About the Crew

Audio Engineer: Paul Hanna and ELA Studios

Featured Organization

Our featured organization this week is Sentences: Book Donations. Their goal is to network readers with prison librarians and juvenile detention centers to determine their needs and donate books for use in their facilities.

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Stories Found was recorded at ELA Studios, deep in the heart of Austin, Texas.